Another retrospective - A Supercollector before Halper, Olbermann, Burdick, Carter....
Stone193
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As long as things are slow and the pages are filling up with best of....
I thought I'd give a little perspective on someone who was a "Super" collector of whom many might not even know since he performed many, many moons ago.
I just hope that some will appreciate the rich heritage that's ours to share and participate in - this "Hobby" we all put some portion of our collective souls into each and every day.
Slightly long read - hope it's worth the bandwidth - please let me know what you think? Are these relevant or am I just spinning my wheels?
Before we had Barry Halper, e.g., much to my surprise there was Joe E. Brown. While many remember Brown for his comedy, did you know that he was quite the athlete and baseball enthusiast, as well? He played semi-pro baseball with the National Vaudeville Artists team and served as part owner of the minor league Kansas City Blues in the 1950s. So strong was his passion for the all-American pastime, he passed his love of the game down to his son, Joe L. Brown, who went on to become general manager of the Pirates in 1955.
Being the consummate sports enthusiast, some of his best films were the baseball trilogy which consisted of Fireman Save My Child (1932), Elmer the Great (1933) and Alibi Ike (1935)
Brown was a pioneering collector of baseball memorabilia. These prized possessions included Hall of Famer Tris Speaker's spikes from the 1920 World Series; Pittsburgh Pirate Paul Waner's bat from one of Big Poison's National League batting title years (Waner's younger brother Lloyd, also an excellent hitter, was known as "Little Poison"); a Babe Ruth bat from the Bambino's legendary 60-home run season in 1927; and Gas House Gang pitcher Dizzy Dean's St. Louis Cardinals uniform from the 1934 World Series, which eventually found its way to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Brown's most prized item, however, was a gift from his New York Yankee pal Lou Gehrig. At the end of the 1939 season, in which Gehrig had given his now celebrated "luckiest man on the face of the Earth" speech (after being forced from the game by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), the "Iron Horse" gave Brown his last first baseman's glove which he played his 2,130 consecutive games. It meant everything to Gehrig, but he wanted to make sure it would pass into hands that would truly cherish it. Joe kept these many trophies in his Room of Love:
Joe collected all sorts of important sports memorabilia, eventually donating much of it to U.C.L.A. Many do not know that he was once offered a contract himself to play with the New York Yankees. However, he turned it down because he was making headway on Broadway.
Also, Brown got to sit on the bench at football games like UCLA where his son played. He, thus, collected balls from important college games.
So, how did Joe acquire these great pieces of sports history? Ebay? SCD? The National? Joe was actually invited to sit in the dugout at games and became friendly with great players like Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb etc. And, it was at these very games, e.g., that many of the items were given to him.
An interesting side note to his relationship with Ty Cobb… In his last days Cobb spent some time with the old movie comedian Joe E. Brown, talking about the choices Cobb had made in his life. He told Brown that he felt that he had made mistakes, and that he would do things differently if he could. He had played hard and lived hard all his life, and had no friends to show for it at the end, and he regretted it. Publicly, however, Cobb claimed not to have any regrets: "I've been lucky. I have no right to be regretful of what I did" (Newsweek, July 31 1961, 54). I found this to be an interesting revelation about the flamboyant Cobb persona.
Additionally, here’s an interesting tidbit about a uni given to Brown by Cobb: Robert Shell, 15, of Baraboo, Wisconsin, whose dream it is to become the curator at the Baseball Hall of Fame, said he bought 36 packs of Upper Deck baseball cards, filled in all the entries for the contest, and was thrilled to win Ty Cobb's autographed 1928 Philadelphia Athletics home jersey. It is the jersey Cobb gave to comedian Joe E. Brown, and it sold to an absentee bidder, underbid by a phone bidder, for $236,500 with buyer's premium.
And everything that goes around...this jersey found it's way into Halper's collection from the Brown family according to the Hunt auction catalog.
I think this has been an interesting addition to my understanding of the people who pioneered this great hobby of ours. There was a small reference to Brown in SCD (an article in a 1936 Hobbies magazine) which gave me the impetus to search the net for more info on him.
mike
I thought I'd give a little perspective on someone who was a "Super" collector of whom many might not even know since he performed many, many moons ago.
I just hope that some will appreciate the rich heritage that's ours to share and participate in - this "Hobby" we all put some portion of our collective souls into each and every day.
Slightly long read - hope it's worth the bandwidth - please let me know what you think? Are these relevant or am I just spinning my wheels?
Before we had Barry Halper, e.g., much to my surprise there was Joe E. Brown. While many remember Brown for his comedy, did you know that he was quite the athlete and baseball enthusiast, as well? He played semi-pro baseball with the National Vaudeville Artists team and served as part owner of the minor league Kansas City Blues in the 1950s. So strong was his passion for the all-American pastime, he passed his love of the game down to his son, Joe L. Brown, who went on to become general manager of the Pirates in 1955.
Being the consummate sports enthusiast, some of his best films were the baseball trilogy which consisted of Fireman Save My Child (1932), Elmer the Great (1933) and Alibi Ike (1935)
Brown was a pioneering collector of baseball memorabilia. These prized possessions included Hall of Famer Tris Speaker's spikes from the 1920 World Series; Pittsburgh Pirate Paul Waner's bat from one of Big Poison's National League batting title years (Waner's younger brother Lloyd, also an excellent hitter, was known as "Little Poison"); a Babe Ruth bat from the Bambino's legendary 60-home run season in 1927; and Gas House Gang pitcher Dizzy Dean's St. Louis Cardinals uniform from the 1934 World Series, which eventually found its way to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Brown's most prized item, however, was a gift from his New York Yankee pal Lou Gehrig. At the end of the 1939 season, in which Gehrig had given his now celebrated "luckiest man on the face of the Earth" speech (after being forced from the game by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), the "Iron Horse" gave Brown his last first baseman's glove which he played his 2,130 consecutive games. It meant everything to Gehrig, but he wanted to make sure it would pass into hands that would truly cherish it. Joe kept these many trophies in his Room of Love:
Joe collected all sorts of important sports memorabilia, eventually donating much of it to U.C.L.A. Many do not know that he was once offered a contract himself to play with the New York Yankees. However, he turned it down because he was making headway on Broadway.
Also, Brown got to sit on the bench at football games like UCLA where his son played. He, thus, collected balls from important college games.
So, how did Joe acquire these great pieces of sports history? Ebay? SCD? The National? Joe was actually invited to sit in the dugout at games and became friendly with great players like Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb etc. And, it was at these very games, e.g., that many of the items were given to him.
An interesting side note to his relationship with Ty Cobb… In his last days Cobb spent some time with the old movie comedian Joe E. Brown, talking about the choices Cobb had made in his life. He told Brown that he felt that he had made mistakes, and that he would do things differently if he could. He had played hard and lived hard all his life, and had no friends to show for it at the end, and he regretted it. Publicly, however, Cobb claimed not to have any regrets: "I've been lucky. I have no right to be regretful of what I did" (Newsweek, July 31 1961, 54). I found this to be an interesting revelation about the flamboyant Cobb persona.
Additionally, here’s an interesting tidbit about a uni given to Brown by Cobb: Robert Shell, 15, of Baraboo, Wisconsin, whose dream it is to become the curator at the Baseball Hall of Fame, said he bought 36 packs of Upper Deck baseball cards, filled in all the entries for the contest, and was thrilled to win Ty Cobb's autographed 1928 Philadelphia Athletics home jersey. It is the jersey Cobb gave to comedian Joe E. Brown, and it sold to an absentee bidder, underbid by a phone bidder, for $236,500 with buyer's premium.
And everything that goes around...this jersey found it's way into Halper's collection from the Brown family according to the Hunt auction catalog.
I think this has been an interesting addition to my understanding of the people who pioneered this great hobby of ours. There was a small reference to Brown in SCD (an article in a 1936 Hobbies magazine) which gave me the impetus to search the net for more info on him.
mike
Mike
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Steve
It's always great to read stories such as this about our hobby. Thanks for taking the time to post it!
Collecting: Topps 1952-79, Bowman 1952-55, OPC 1965-71, and Pre-War White Sox cards
"Molon Labe"
In the summer of 1958, in Torrance, CA, I met JEB at a Gray-Y baseball game.
My uncle - married to my mother's sister - was a bookmaker and club owner
in Hollywood. He and JEB were rounder buddies.
It's is hard to describe the notion of "stardom" before there were 500
TV-channels and the internet, but JEB was a hugely famous star and
the folks in CA loved him.
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Laverne De Fazio called and said she is really pist that she didn't
get into the title of this thread; at least ahead of Olbermann.
http://www.americanmemorabilia.com/Auctions.asp?rpp=50&rtb=1&rnb=0&qvac=1&qvas=1&ListStyle=&auclisttype=all&period=open&auccat=All+Categories&aucsearch=penny+marshall&SortBy=&offset=0
Here's a clip of Brown messing around with the great Hack Wilson.
And here's a trailer to the 1933 movie Elmer, the great.
He was a cool guy and ball players liked him.
mike
Mike (Vito) - I got the reference. One of the funniest movies of all time.
Or Regional Canadian Baseball Issues?
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Topps Heritage - Trade Page
Here's a cool pic of Joe:
Joe, like other great Vaudevillians, was a superb athlete.
mike
Donato
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<< <i>Any idea who is sitting on the bench with Brown? The one on the right looks like Bob Hope. >>
Sorry I dug that out of the internet - starpix - and they don't give any info.
But, the nose doesn't look like Hope IMO.
mke